Today the UK's largest mortgage lender, the Bradford & Bingley, continues the domino-stack tumble of the world's financial institutions. With £50 billion of mortgage and loan debt taken into UK Government, nationalised control, it doesn't take a Chief Economist to work out that there exists a seismic fissure in the reputation of the world's capitalist model and supporting economic institutions.

It seems inconceivable that public faith or confidence will ever be restored in traditional banking and government authorities that have seemingly failed to get a grip on rocketing energy costs, creeping stagflation and house prices that are seeing an average 7% gap in desired sales price versus value. The public is probably justified in feeling betrayed by a system that led them by the nose into massive personal debt only to then brutally pull the rug right from underneath them.

Even the much promoted ISA or gilt/bond investment markets appear to be affording little savings shelter to those who had, more sensibly, bucked the trend of instant "spend, spend, spend" gratification.

So who is there now to platform public anger around the levelling effects of this crisis that has seen City bankers lose their jobs alongside home repossessions among the less wealthy?

The anti-capitalist movement has been strangely quiet on the matter. Indeed, its own reputation and following may well be impacted by the fact that, when handed a golden opportunity to campaign its vision that "Another World is Possible", it has hitherto failed to exert any tangible influence and outline an alternative, more workable economic order beyond rhetoric.

Given the pain of the current crisis, it may be indelicate to suggest that something positive for society could eventually emerge.

In times of crisis, however, many organisations tend to adopt an often unfamiliar phase of introspection. To develop immunity under outside attack, they re-visit past behaviours, take learning's and modify their systems and actions to allow them to better counter future difficulty. It can be a painful process where they have been used to operating for so many years under a stable status quo. Yet it ultimately builds greater strength.

In the current consumer crisis, individuals will instinctively, as human beings, do the same. Retreat is a natural form of defence. It will force us all to re-assess our spending habits, re-evaluate our levels of reliance on others/outside authorities for support. And from this, whether consciously or subconsciously, we are likely to re-learn how to draw on our own resources to better ensure our economic survival.

Could it be, ironically, that it is this period of financial turmoil that will do more for societal change - for individual self-discipline, self-reliance and lessening of the social divide - than any Church or other societal institution could ever have hoped to achieve on such a global scale?

It remains to be seen, however, what this victory for the human race might mean for the future of the banking industry as it currently stands....

Labels: Banking Crisis, Public Mistrust, Social Reform

The e-book has landed! The final boundary of the type-written word breached by a digital tide that has transformed the way we process, relay and absorb information. So what now? With the launch in Britain this week of the Sony Reader, capable of storing 160 novels and reportedly weighing less than 9 ounces, should we be preparing to mourn the death of an old familiar friend or celebrating the final siege of "the last bastion of analogue"(1) - the printed book?

Now I don't know if this is something to be proud of, but I am still of the generation that is instantly transported to childhood nostalgia by the musty smell of leather book bindings and reassured by the crisp sound and feel of paper between my fingers. I appreciate my leisurely reading time, unhindered by processing speed, battery life and the compulsion to squeeze in a quick read before my next client meeting.

Frankly, the issue of e-books leaves me feeling like Alice in Wonderland - a little, how should I say, schizophrenic? On the one hand, there's a Queen of Hearts inside baying to get her hands on the latest digital assault weapon; on the other, a simpering white rabbit needing to retreat down its bolt hole to recapture lost time.

But here's the rub. As that very enlightened 1939 jazz song goes: "T'aint What you Do (It's the Way that You Do It)". War and Peace on e-book? No thanks! An ability - finally - to easily decipher and digest, via a hand-held device, client literature, corporate information and briefing documentation on the move? Why, not?

In the whole communications armoury that marketing and PR professionals have assiduously developed over the last decades, perhaps the creation of a corporate e-book will one day find its place in this digital and paper-conscious age.

Back in the Nineties, at the onset of the digital imaging boom, I was part of a maverick team that successfully marketed the first consumer, Kodak DC20 digital camera - one that had no picture review screen! On that basis alone, my general belief is that anything is possible.

So, until the clever product development folks at Sony devise a fine-grain, textured e-book reader with the Seventies-style scratch and sniff aroma of leather and printers ink, if that belief means having to cross the consumer chasm (2), new e-book firmly in hand, then so be it.

(1): Amazon
(2): Geoffrey A. Moore: "Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Consumers"

Labels: e-books, marketing, Sony Reader